


Visiting Hours

by orphan_account



Category: Harry Potter - Fandom
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-29
Updated: 2013-12-29
Packaged: 2018-01-06 15:00:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1108231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She has trouble remembering the stars in his eyes, the constellations his laughter would leave.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Visiting Hours

She tries to tell herself that he’s okay strapped up in a shell-white room, sealed away with a bolted door that only opens for meals and medication. Repeats the words as she watches him burrow in a corner of the padded room, as she stands with her stubborn feet planted to the ground that refuse to move. Repeats the words so softly in her mind that they collapse into stunted syllables and stammering breaths that fall between fabrication and reality. He’s okay. He’s okay. He is okay. His eyes are sunken, skin stained a deep purple that Luna wishes she could wash away. The crisp uniform they give him—it’s a uniform, she tells herself, just like the one she wore in her school days except whiter, thinner—hangs off his bones and folds, the fabric too big to hold something so small. His hair is sloppily matted to his forehead and his nails are rubbed down to the nub.

She has trouble remembering the stars in his eyes, the constellations his laughter would leave.

She can barely recall the times she found him perched on her bed, rolling a radish earring in the small shell of his palm, a smile full of wonder.

Now as he stares past her shoulder, eyes unseeing and blank, she can’t remember at all.

He is okay.

"Your father wanted to come with me, you know, but your brother wasn’t feeling well, I’m afraid. An awful case of Dragon Pox," she says lightly, furrowing her brow together, forehead marred with permanent creases. He blinks but otherwise shows no recognition that she’s even spoken. It’s funny, she thinks, not ironic, no, that she lost her mother as a child and now she’s lost one of her own.

"Daddy thinks it’s prudent he stay because school is coming up soon. Only a few more weeks, actually. And then it’s your brother’s birthday—-well, both your birthdays," she revises, ashamed of her mistake.

"We’ll—we’ll stop by, bring a few gifts if they allow us. Maybe Aunt Hermione can come by as well; I know how much you like her visits," she says.

But he doesn’t seem to like any of her idea, she can tell by the faint twitch in his shoulders and the way the muscle in his jaw jumps sporadically.

"Leave," he whispers, digging his head into the corner of the wall. His voice is rough and sounds like scraping metal. Luna starts and shakes her head slowly, straggly blond hair shifting. "Lorcan—" she starts, but he lets out an awful wail, gripping onto her arm with a strength she did not think he was capable of. "I said leave! Get out! Get out of here! Get away!" he screams, dragging her by the arm as he pounds on the door with his other hand.

They are rushing to the door—-the healers, opening the sealed entrance with aimed wands and harassed expressions. “Mrs. Lovegood, I fear your visit will have to come to an end for today,” one says hurriedly, pulling her back as another pries Lorcan’s hands from her arm. The healers march in and slam the door behind them, but Luna stands, knees shaking and heart thumping.

"Mrs. Lovegood, please. There isn’t anything you can do. Go back home to your husband, your family," the healer says quietly, resting a gentle hand on shoulders that are close to crumbling. She nods slowly, and the healer smiles sadly, guiding her to the exist.

A blast of shrieking rains down on her head and she walks faster. She looks down accidentally and catches the faint imprint of Lorcan’s fingers on her arm, burning red. “He’s okay, he’s okay,” she whispers to herself, faint blue eyes wide. Luna Lovegood has always believed such fantastical myths.

Another scream and then silence.


End file.
